Thats all well and good, but it still doesn't explain the reasons I mentioned up above for them to be banned. What it also doesn't mention is the kirby land characters and snake also have autokills on transform of castle seige. D3 can chain during transform stage. The right hand side gimps more than half the cast due to only some having the right recovery and ledge grab range to get around it (but that isn't really a reason to ban it). Castle isn't broken because of the second transformation. Its the stuff during transformation that makes it BS. Even if it is for D3.
And Ice Climbers have 0-deaths on every stage. So before I ban Castle Siege, I'd ban ICs as well?.
My answer is that I personally believe that it is a reasonable assumption for players to both expect the eventual transformation and be prepared to merely avoid the opponent during that time.
On this stage, the skillset is not marginalised to the point of there being a sole, defining strategy to win.
Picto is completely random, therefore you still die if it decides to draw something in front of you when recovering or being juggled. Not to mention you can actually be put through the edges with some down throws on some transformations. Therefore not allowing recovery. Unless your MK
, or a few others who can recover well.
However, there is also a fraction of time (3 seconds?) when the transformation is 'drawn' onto the stage, allowing reasonable time to prepare for and counter-act the stage. My rebuttal is to consider the platform ghost on Yoshi's Island Brawl. Just as PictoChat can ruin recoveries, Yoshi's can randomly save others (and there is no known pattern), foiling attempts at KOs on the opponent.
Can you objectively define why one scenario is okay and one isn't?
Personally I'm on the fence about pictochat.
We all know how the stages work, it doesn't change why they shouldn't be allowed. To be honest, any stage that transforms or moves are terrible for Ness and Lucas. The stagelist as it is now promotes everyone to play even more MK.
By this logic, Smashville should be banned because the balloon is both random and capable of gimping Ness' recovery.
But I digress. Matt, I highly reccomend perhaps skimming this thread:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=291190
I'm also curious to see your answer to:
"
So what if MK is broken on RC?"
Could you possibly define
objective criteria that reasons why Rainbow Cruise should be banned?
Consider that we ban "Loop" stages because they marginalise the skill set required in Brawl to win (IE, picking Sonic and getting the lead to time out the opponent because it is reasonably certain that the Sonic player will comfortably be able to do so).
Brawl currently contains two win conditions.
- Your opponent loses 3 stock
- You have more stock than the opponent, or if equal, less damage when the time runs out
Where do you draw the line with stages like Rainbow Cruise when a character like Wolf is perfectly capable of timing out Snake on Smashville? We ban stages because they contain over-centralising strategies and skill marginalisation (Dedede on Bridge of Eldin, Sonic on Temple or New Pork). What about Diddy on FD?
Tell me, what is the defining, over-centralising strategy that makes RC ban-worthy? Because if it's running away for 8 minutes, that's not enough for a ban. The difference between RC and Spear Pillar in that regard being that Spear Pillar provides a means of avoiding all conflict that isn't considered under the "No stalling" clause. Whilst Rainbow Cruise is a stage that stops planking, is not random in the slightest, and does not transition faster or as fast as Sonic.
Metaknight on Rainbow Cruise requires a consistent act of keep away for 8 minutes, and if you watched Brood vs M2k, you can see it can be harder than it looks.
It's funny. This argument is almost warrant enough for Port Town to come back.
But the eventual point of all this is that my answer to the question of "So what?" is that we ban things because it is up to us to define the competitive state of Brawl, a subjective pursuit at best unless we adopt the Japanese philosophy of having only 3 stages. This basically means that because we don't like something, we ban it, even if some would call it 'scrubby'.
This is why a stage that is random like Pictochat is okay when a stage like Jungle Japes which isn't random and 100% predictable is banned.
